How to Design Your Church Wayfinding Signage (Case Study)

If you’re looking at getting new signs or updating your building, don’t miss this opportunity to update your branding as well! It’s one thing for a sign to look nice and be functional, but branding and design has the power to do much more than just help people find the nursery. Every bulletin, banner, and coffee cup is an opportunity to shape the culture of your church through intentional, vision-aligned branding that stands the test of time. If that’s your ultimate goal, then updating your signs without rebranding first would be a massive waste of time and money! Schedule a time to talk and I’ll walk you through what a brand refresh could look like, so you don’t have to re-do your signs AGAIN in a couple of years.

For way-finding signage, there are three critical things to get right with typography: Size, Style, and Grouping. To figure out how big the font size should be on your signs, think about the furthest possible viewing distance for that sign. Will visitors be seeing it up close every time, or is it at the end of a hallway? A general rule of thumb is that the main headings on the sign should be legible from 40ft away for someone with good eyesight. This applies mostly to directional signage, and isn’t necessary for things like room labels. Now on to font style. Legibility is absolutely critical for way-finding, so you want to choose a brand-aligned font that is easy to read. For the thickness or weight of the text, lean bolder rather than lighter. In this example, we’re using Larken, the main brand typeface, for the headings. The secondary typeface, Plus Jakarta Sans, was better suited for the other information and is more legible at small sizes. Finally, consider the grouping of information and arrows in your layout. You want to make sure that you have grouped relevant information together in a way that will quickly make sense to someone who is late for Sunday School!

Let's say your brand’s hero color was a bright red. Your wayfinding signs should be red to be on-brand, right? Not so fast! Would you put a bright red couch in your living room? What about multiple bright red paintings throughout your home? Again, probably not. For environmental signage and way-finding, we have to think more like interior designers and accessibility experts than graphic designers. Earlier in the rebrand process, we had developed a brand color palette for this particular church with a dark charcoal color we called “Forge Black.” Using this darker, more neutral color as the main background was a good choice for three reasons: It wouldn’t clash with the paint, flooring, and other interior colors of the building. It wouldn’t show dirt as easily as a lighter color. It would allow for the most legibility and contrast for the text. As you can see, we did bring in the red hero color, but only in a very intentional, minimalist way. Even the logo on the signs was intentionally subdued and understated to make room for more important information, like “¿donde esta el baño?”

I recently helped a church in Kansas City rebrand, and this project took much longer than we anticipated! This church needed collateral designed in preparation for their official launch of the new identity. Collateral like wayfinding signs, and A LOT OF THEM. 85 signs, to be exact. If you have a church building, chances are you have these! Sample from OLD wayfinding and branding Way-finding signs are the built-in guide to your building, both for first-time visitors and those forgetful members who could probably get lost in their own house (you know who I’m talking about). Here’s the thing: there are some HUGE blunders that are easy to make with this type of signage. So, to save you from those, I thought I would show the design process I went through with this Kansas City church and their way-finding signs. In design, way-finding falls under the category of what we call “environmental design.” Most of these signs were going to be a part of the building, so we had to treat them more like a piece of furniture than a graphic or a poster. I'll be going over each one of these in future posts, where we'll explore what that looks like through two key considerations: Color and Typography. Stay tuned!

I recently reconnected with a distant cousin who was just starting a new role as a Worship Pastor in Texas. He had been immediately tasked with redesigning the church bulletin and some other collateral - a classic “worship-leader-becomes-graphic-designer” scenario. But he found something totally unexpected. More on that in a minute. See, my cousin had started with an audit of the church bulletin. It was bad. I’m talking 1990s clip-art, 10 different fonts, and a migraine-inducing layout. Then he looked at the rest of the campus. Signage looked different in every hallway, and anything designed had that general “patched together” kind of vibe. The pastors all knew this stuff needed a redesign. The church had a logo people had grown to love and brand equity that was worth preserving. But without clear guidelines in place, things had slipped into visual inconsistency - badly. So, I asked them a simple question: “Have you thought about brand guidelines?” Their response? “No, but now we’re interested!” Until that moment, they had been focusing on the immediate problems that were painful, but they were treating the symptoms, not the disease. I explained to them how a brand refresh often benefits churches in their exact position. When you refresh your branding and put together brand guidelines, you’re not looking to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch. Instead, the goal is to bring clarity and consistency to what you already have. This is about making sure everything from bulletins to digital media feel like it belongs to the same church family. A brand audit and fresh set of guidelines can be perfect for maintaining the identity people recognize while elevating your overall quality and professionalism of communication. Neither my cousin nor I had expected this, but the church hired me on the spot, and we’re getting to work together to unify and future-proof their church branding. True story! If that’s something you’re thinking about for your brand, book a call with me and we can talk more about how to represent the work God is doing in the life of your church.

I recently helped a church in Kansas City rebrand, and this project took much longer than we anticipated! This church needed collateral designed in preparation for their official launch of the new identity. Collateral like wayfinding signs, and A LOT OF THEM. 85 signs, to be exact. If you have a church building, chances are you have these! Sample from OLD wayfinding and branding Way-finding signs are the built-in guide to your building, both for first-time visitors and those forgetful members who could probably get lost in their own house (you know who I’m talking about). Here’s the thing: there are some HUGE blunders that are easy to make with this type of signage. So, to save you from those, I thought I would show the design process I went through with this Kansas City church and their way-finding signs. In design, way-finding falls under the category of what we call “environmental design.” Most of these signs were going to be a part of the building, so we had to treat them more like a piece of furniture than a graphic or a poster. I'll be going over each one of these in future posts, where we'll explore what that looks like through two key considerations: Color and Typography. Stay tuned!

Every day around mid-morning, I take a bathroom break and that’s when I write these posts - gross I know, but it’s the perfect amount of time and I have no distractions (now you won’t be able to get that image out of your mind, so you’re welcome). Context aside, when I’m motivated and inspired it’s easy, but today I had some serious creative block of the “stare vacantly at a blank page and start the same sentence five times over” variety. I have a hunch this doesn’t just happen to creatives. Most of my readers are church leaders, I’ll wager that you probably experience that wall too. If so, maybe you can benefit from the two strategies I use to overcome creative block. 1. Short term strategy Exercise is my immediate strategy for overcoming it in the short term. I’ll go home after work, grab my dumbbells, and start lifting. Something about an intense workout stimulates my creativity and writing energy. However, that only works on that day, and if I can’t get a workout in, I’m in trouble. 2. Long term strategy My long term strategy to overcome creative block is to write daily. I used to think I didn’t have time for something recreational like writing, much less every day. But I realized that as long as I put it on the other side of something I enjoy more (chess puzzles), I could force myself to take 5-15 minutes and crank out a thought. Writing became a habit I was cultivating. Something you practice with regularity and discipline becomes easier and easier, and those creative block moments get fewer and farther between. Even when it takes a bit longer to get rolling, the groove is greased and the engine is still warm from yesterday. If there’s something you know you should be doing (maybe writing, maybe calling to check in on members, maybe something else) make it a small part of your daily routine and see how much you start feeling empowered when those “block” moments hit.

Let’s Imagine a young couple building a house. They’ve worked with a builder and picked a colonial style for the exterior. It has the white columns and the wide porch with two rocking chairs. It has the tall windows and the warm wood trim. But suppose this couple is handy and has decided to finish off the interior on their own, with the help of YouTube University. They browse Pinterest for inspiration and find a style of rustic modern kitchen to set their hearts on (you know the kind I’m talking about - with the subway tile, white marble countertops, and stainless steel accents). Then, in their hunt for inspiration, they come across those industrial living spaces with exposed brick and black steel. They haven’t begun to feel overwhelmed yet, and so they save this style for their living room. One Pinterest board at a time, they add layers of paint colors, textures, and styles to the interior plans. Before they know it, the inside of the house looks like a Picasso: an uncomfortable collage of pieces that would otherwise be beautiful on their own. It’s easy to fall into this trap with any kind of design, and branding is no exception. Before someone starts piecing together visuals for their church, the smart thing to do is to consult a designer who specializes in brands and get a set of guidelines nailed down. We have names for styles because certain textures, colors, and shapes work together to create a particular curb appeal. Switch it up too often, and curb appeal turns into confusion.

A welcome brochure is one of the things I often find myself helping churches design, despite the fact that I never suggest or recommend it. Why don’t I encourage churches to create these? Well, because to be honest I don’t pick them up myself. If I see a stack of flyers sitting on a table when I walk in your church door for the first time, am I going to grab one? Probably not, no matter how good the design is. I’m looking for a familiar face to connect with, not a colorful piece of paper. If I want to know where to find you on Facebook I’m going to Google search it. If I’m needing to read about your beliefs, I’ll find them on your website. However… I’m a millennial. For older folks who aren’t addicted to their phones and dependent on ChatGPT/Google, a well-designed welcome brochure is often the perfect way to communicate key info and help them get familiar with your church. So it’s worth it to have a welcome brochure in some cases. The important thing to ask yourself is this: Who are you trying to reach? Is your community one that will actually engage with flyers and brochures? If not, then your efforts and money are probably better spent elsewhere.

If you’re looking at getting new signs or updating your building, don’t miss this opportunity to update your branding as well! It’s one thing for a sign to look nice and be functional, but branding and design has the power to do much more than just help people find the nursery. Every bulletin, banner, and coffee cup is an opportunity to shape the culture of your church through intentional, vision-aligned branding that stands the test of time. If that’s your ultimate goal, then updating your signs without rebranding first would be a massive waste of time and money! Schedule a time to talk and I’ll walk you through what a brand refresh could look like, so you don’t have to re-do your signs AGAIN in a couple of years.

For way-finding signage, there are three critical things to get right with typography: Size, Style, and Grouping. To figure out how big the font size should be on your signs, think about the furthest possible viewing distance for that sign. Will visitors be seeing it up close every time, or is it at the end of a hallway? A general rule of thumb is that the main headings on the sign should be legible from 40ft away for someone with good eyesight. This applies mostly to directional signage, and isn’t necessary for things like room labels. Now on to font style. Legibility is absolutely critical for way-finding, so you want to choose a brand-aligned font that is easy to read. For the thickness or weight of the text, lean bolder rather than lighter. In this example, we’re using Larken, the main brand typeface, for the headings. The secondary typeface, Plus Jakarta Sans, was better suited for the other information and is more legible at small sizes. Finally, consider the grouping of information and arrows in your layout. You want to make sure that you have grouped relevant information together in a way that will quickly make sense to someone who is late for Sunday School!

Let's say your brand’s hero color was a bright red. Your wayfinding signs should be red to be on-brand, right? Not so fast! Would you put a bright red couch in your living room? What about multiple bright red paintings throughout your home? Again, probably not. For environmental signage and way-finding, we have to think more like interior designers and accessibility experts than graphic designers. Earlier in the rebrand process, we had developed a brand color palette for this particular church with a dark charcoal color we called “Forge Black.” Using this darker, more neutral color as the main background was a good choice for three reasons: It wouldn’t clash with the paint, flooring, and other interior colors of the building. It wouldn’t show dirt as easily as a lighter color. It would allow for the most legibility and contrast for the text. As you can see, we did bring in the red hero color, but only in a very intentional, minimalist way. Even the logo on the signs was intentionally subdued and understated to make room for more important information, like “¿donde esta el baño?”